Stick Insect Care Tips
Fundamental to stick insect care is keeping your pet’s housing clean. If you use newspaper as substrate then this is relatively easily, but if you have opted for bark, moss, or peat then it can involve a bit more work. You need to make sure that all the droppings are removed, and of course take away all the perished food. When you are busy cleaning make sure that you don’t inadvertently remove the eggs!
Your stick insects will molt regularly from nymph through to adulthood. It varies from species to species, but the Indian Stick Insect molts six times before reaching the adult stage. In order to facilitate this process you should ensure that you provide an environment of the right humidity, and ensure a healthy diet. You will recognize the process because your stick insects will lose their appetite and become lethargic in the days prior to a molt.
Your pets will hang upside down, and split in a straight line down the thorax. A head will emerge, and then after a much-deserved pause the abdomen is pulled out of the old skin. The process is pretty tiring for a stick insect and they will be slow for the first few hours afterwards as they allow their skin to harden. Unlike lizards, and other exotic pets, stick insects to not generally eat their old skin.
You definitely want to purchase a stick insect in the early stages of molting, since after the final molt they can live as little as a month. If you have a female specimen then it may live for as long as six months post molt. The signs of imminent death are inactivity.
Keeping stick insects in good conditions greatly reduces their susceptibility to diseases related to overcrowding and dirty conditions, such as fungal infections. If you have pets with broken legs, or other body parts, then you will find that they are more likely to develop an infection. If you have a number of insects and find that many are falling ill then you should switch food supply – remember that bramble with pesticides or exhaust fumes does not agree with the stick insect.
Insects are often indigenous to tropical climates, and one of the main sources of illness can be the vivarium’s inability to replicate this. Don’t put your pets on a window ledge in the hope the local sun will mimic that of their home country, instead put them out of the way of the local climate and use heat mats and bulbs to recreate a natural climate.
With such delicate legs one of the biggest threats to pet stick insects is being handled by humans. Make sure that you are prepared for their rapid movement, and in the case of some species their defensive spikes. Also, some species do have wings so don’t let them escape and then cause damage as they are recaptured. The best way to handle a stick insect without damage is to pick them up from the sides of the thorax without getting close to their legs. Make sure that the fabric of your clothes will not ensnare the insect’s legs, and if the legs do get trapped then rather than pull them free try to dislodge them with a small object such as a straw. There are two occasions when handling should be avoided for the safety of your pet: post-molting, and in the nymph stage.
Finally, it is unfortunate, but taking your pet to a vet is unlikely to be a useful part of stick insect care. With such short life cycles, and relatively little known about these insects, one of the best insect care tips is to concentrate on prevention.
